Paula Deen Quotes

The food in the South is as important as food anywhere because it defines a person's culture.

In the South, the food is outstanding. Down south, we eat to get full, and the people up north, they don't do that.

No self-respecting Southerner will eat something baked, broiled, grilled, stewed, poached, sauteed, or flambeed when it can be deep fried.

I tend to eat geographically. When I'm in L.A., I like to eat L.A. food.

Culinary tradition is not always based on fact. Sometimes it's based on history, on habits that come out of a time when kitchens were fueled by charcoal.

New Orleans cuisine is Creole rather than Cajun.

Barbecue is the third rail of North Carolina politics.

Many of the things the slow food people honor were innovations within historical times. Somebody had to be the first European to eat a tomato.

Near Marseilles in the south of France, bouillabaisse is a cult food. In Toulouse and Carcassonne, the bean-based stew cassoulet is a cult food. Spain has paella and a number of others. Italy has so many, its cuisine is practically defined by them.

I don't think people should be fed mesclun salad and chicken breast. My grandmother would serve grits and oxtail stew at a formal dinner, and if you didn't like it, well then you ate more beans or you went home and ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Stone-ground grits are wonderful, but because they take so long to cook, I usually go with quick cooking grits - which I also love. But I never make the instant kind - some things a Southerner just won't do!

You pretty much can't get away from bacon or whiskey in the South. Put a doughnut in it and you'd be good to go.

I'm American. Very American. Like, I-might-have-biscuits-and-sausage-gravy-for-dinner American.

For breakfast I have grits, because I'm a Southern girl!

Wherever I go, as long as I get a hot vegetable dish, I am okay. If I am in Gujarat, I have Gujarati food. If it's Shillong, it's northeastern.

Canada is a country of ingredients without a cuisine; we're a country with musicians without an indigenous instrument; Toronto's a city that doesn't even have a dish named after it.

I like health-conscious cooking, but growing up in the South, I do love southern cooking; southern France, southern Italy, southern Spain. I love southern cooking.

Although, I didn't really like sushi until I moved out to L.A.

Next to fried foods, the South has suffered most from oratory.

Boiled peanuts are a Southern thing.

When I'm in L.A., I have salads, sandwiches, and soups all the time. Eating in New York, I feel like I have to have pizza and bagels while I'm here!

We grew up in Texas. We ate fried chicken and steak all the time. I didn't eat sushi until I was 24.

Food is never static; culture is never static.

I can eat a lot of pizza. And I can cook. I'm from New Orleans, so it's just in my blood.

There are things I like about fancy Southern food and there are things I really love from just down-home Southern cooking. So mixing those two together would probably be right up my alley.